82 PROC. ENT. soc. WASH., VOL. 23, NO.. 4, APRIL, 1921 



can Ornithology and of many other drawings of natural history 

 subjects. 



Although T. R. Peale has generally been spoken of as the 

 illustrator of Say's American Entomology, an examination of 

 the published records fails to establish his authorship of more 

 than 28 of the 54 plates contained in the work. Of the 26 

 remaining plates, 9 are credited to C. A. Lesueur, 9 to W. W. 

 Wood, and 2 to H. B. Bridport. The remaining 6 plates are 

 unsigned and there appears nothing in the text to inform us who 

 prepared them. Titian R. Peale was a member of the well 

 known Philadelphia family of that name, of which no less than 

 7 members were artists of greater or less renown in America. 

 Several of them were interested in the natural sciences and did 

 much to foster the science of entomology in the early days of its 

 development in this country. The Peale family was a most 

 remarkable one for the longevity of its members, as six of the 

 artist members before referred to each lived to be more than 80 

 years of age. One lived to be 97 and the sum of the ages of the 

 6 amounts to no less than 522 years; here is evidence that the 

 so-called "artistic temperament" is not nearly so wearing on 

 the system as some persons would have us believe. 



T. R. Peale's record bears but one stigma, in that he served 

 as a "government clerk," having been employed as an Examiner 

 in the Patent Office in Washington from 1 849 to 1 872. Perhaps 

 it would have been more charitable not to mention this, in view 

 o'~ his otherwise exemplary life. 



Charles Alexander Lesueur, who was a collaborator of Peale's 

 in the illustration of Say's work, was a Frenchman by birth and 

 was born in Havre-de-Grace, France, in January, 1778, where 

 he died on December 12, 1846. Before his departure from his 

 native country Lesueur was known as an artist of great ability 

 and had been called "the Raphael of zoological painters." 

 When Lesueur was in his 23d year, he shipped as a ship's 

 apprentice for a voyage to Australia with what has been called 

 the " Baudin Expedition." This was an exploring expedition 

 fitted out at national expense and placed under the command 

 of one Nicholas Baudin, who, judging from the account of the 

 voyage given by George Ord, was as arrant a rascal as ever went 

 unhung. He not only sold a large part of the stores that had 

 been provided for the subsistence and safety of the members of 

 the expedition, but reduced all hands to starvation rations, thus 

 superinducing scurvy and other diseases from which a consider- 

 able number of the crew and scientific staff lost their lives. 



Lesueur had not been long at sea before his remarkable talents 

 as an artist were discovered with the result that he was promptly 

 "transferred by the commander-in-chief from the humble 

 position he occupied among the crew, to the honorable station 

 of painter of natural history, and his appointments and privi- 



